The Struggle
Hm... where to start? Ah! I know, allow me to introduce the name... The Struggle... odd name for an article right? Well don't give up on me now, just keep on reading. Soon you'll understand. What is the Struggle? What does it mean? What can it teach us? To be honest, the Struggle is simply two words used to describe something. Do you know what they describe my good listener? They describe... how should I say? They describe kindness. The ability for a person to care for others, for a person to fight for what they know is right. For one to stand out, to go against the odds, to do the right thing even when all others laugh at your efforts. The Struggle is not truly the title, it's simply my title for it. It can be called anything, just depends on who's naming it. We all have had this "Struggle." In a moment when a person does something that they don't have to do. It can be small things... and it can be large things. We can give up very little to do kind things or we can give a lot to do kind things. We can succeed or we can fail. In the end, it doesn't really matter. As they all say: "it's the thought that counts." That, good listener, is what truly matters in the end. And in the end, no matter what happens, a kind deed always makes a person stronger. What is kindness? What is the Struggle? Kindness is technically a kind deed or a state/quality of being kind. In my words, it's going out of your way to benefit others. It's what all people should live by, it's the only thing that can truly make our world better. Sadly many don't live by kindness. But a good thing can go a long way. I bet you're wondering who wrote this. Pardon my manners, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm a user here, Meat and Taters is my name, well my username. My true name is Stephen. I bet you're wondering why I wrote this. I wrote it to teach you something, to share a piece of my life experience and knowledge with you. But everything we know as humans... has been learned. And with everything we learn, there is a story as to how we learned it. I am no different. But I will share my story and let you see it all through my eyes from my feeble beginnings to my explosive end. ---- I'm currently going through my user contributions on Halo Fanon, much of my past has lost it's little details. I will read through each of my works on Halo Fanon and recall my story step by step. It all began on December 13, 2008. I was a wiki newbie, I had little to no knowledge of how to work on wikis. I was only a member of some Gruntipedia wiki. It was a halo humor wiki. It was actually very small. When I was told I couldn't make fan fiction (fanon) articles, I moved on and found a place called Halo Fanon. To me it was perfect... but HUGE to me. First person I ever spoke to was Dragon Claws. I asked if I could make humor articles as I recall. Of course he said no, so I was kind of doubtful if I could produce anything good. But I decided to give the serious articles a chance. I saw that the wiki was unique, it had a very different set of rules. I slowly read through them and understood them, I didn't want to make a bad first impression. Soon afterward, I built up the confidence to show the wiki my first article "The Epic of Barbartus." It started small and had a few issues. But it grew and became better, people commented and liked it. I remember meeting Actene, what a talented person he was... then there was Subtank (she always gave me the creeps, girls who don't laugh are creepy you know? Haha, she was cool though). Oh my god! I remember Sgt.johnson too! He was my mentor, he helped me with a lot, my first signature, all that good stuff! Man he was awesome. First real friend I had on Halo Fanon. Soon I found out he was African American. Not to be racial, but I thought he'd share my tastes in music (I always loved rap strangely). Turns out he was more of a rock and roll kind of guy. He was still cool though. I soon became good friends with Actene. Read some of his works, damn that kid had talent. Soon my first article was completed and it was a good one. Filled with images and good story. Then I noticed a fan fiction contest, well I couldn't resist nominating my story for Covenant Character of the Year. It started slow, few people voted for it, but it soon rose to a tie with the leading article. I was really excited for it. As this happened, I was opened up to a lot of the community. RelentlessRecusant, AR, Delta Team Curt, etc. Many were talented writers, far better than myself. I remember that AR didn't seem like he was going to win anything even though he deserved it, I think I voted for some of his articles. So I got to know people and my article rose. Such happy times these were, looking back on what I was... I had a lot of potential, I could have been one of the best users on that site. Then things got a bit darker... It turns out I was only a member of the wiki for a week by the time I nominated my article... you had to have been there for at least three weeks to rightfully nominate. Some guy named ONIrecon111 complained that my article should be removed, back then he sounded like a thirteen-year-old kiss-ass to me. I talked to RelentlessRecusant about the matter, seeing as to how he was one of the... nicer admins on the sight. He told me that the rule was only put in action to keep sockpuppeting from happening, clearly I wasn't a sockpuppeter so he told me I had a chance. I was back in the game again! Then a few days before the contest would end, some guy named Ajax 013 removed my article. I was so close to winning, I shouldn't have been removed, it was wrong. Unfair. So I complained and stated my opinion on the talk page, turns out that Ajax 013 was simply "upholding the rules." Ha! Soon I realized that there was no chance of me getting back in so I eased off. By this time most of the wiki saw me as some bitchy user. All I did was tell them that I was no sockpuppet and that I shouldn't have been removed, that it was unfair, and I was right. As usual though, people will never admit their faults so I was made out to be the bad guy. Things soon got better though, I think I made two new stories. Good ones too. People didn't really comment too much (surprisingly, that's a good thing on HF, the only time people would usually comment is if they found a problem with the article). I wanted to broaden my horizons though, I wanted to make factions and weapons. I tried to make a few factions, they were NCF and Unrealistic of course, my true talent was in stories. I tried and tried with the faction articles but they just didn't work. I began to build my own unique style on the wiki. I was a story maker, and a good one too. I started to make humor. Some were from Grunipedia, and some were new to Halo Fanon. People there didn't honestly like my humor articles... in fact they didn't like anyone's humor articles. From what I knew, humor was frowned upon. Of course I found this to be completely stupid and continued making my humor articles... and people still hated them. Hated me too ha ha. Eventually my work was flamed and I gave up trying to make factions and humor, moved back to story-telling. I had a hard time coming up with ideas though, there wasn't much to work with. I started to come up with ideas but suddenly I came across a user named Colass. He was an awkward user, his articles were strange and didn't honestly make much sense, I decided to lend him a hand, offering to help him make an article. I went to his talk page and found something horrible. A user named Spartan-118 posted this on his talk page: Your articles are pointless and boring! XD Flying Shrimp? Good lord!? Do you QUITE know how Canon-unfriendly that is? I must ask: WHY SHRIMP!!? XD. Seriously, please make it conform to established standards of this Wiki. I was shocked. The sheer cruelty of that message went all through me. Later that day, Colass messaged me back and said that he would love to make an article... but everyone on the wiki hated him. That was the last thing he ever said, he left Halo Fanon. I was changed that day. People always wondered why I let such a little thing as someone like Colass get to me... it wasn't really just Colass. You see, he reminded me of something. He awoke one of my... bad memories. I probably shouldn't tell you what this memory was, but then you wouldn't understand. And I can't just leave you confused now, can I? It was a few years ago on a rainy Tuesday morning... I walked into school, I was only an eighth grader back then. I was a bit early to school, my friend Brittany came up to me and asked, "why are the teachers all crying Stephen?" I had no idea, I just got to school. I heard the bell ring and I got to class. First period was English, our teacher was always nice, but when I walked in I noticed that she was crying. I knew Brittany wasn't lying now. All the students came in, they were quiet as the teacher walked up to the front of the class. She told us that our fellow classmate Ricky was dead... the class was still. I didn't believe it. She told us that he committed suicide. She stopped talking and let the class take it in. I felt a swell of pain in my chest. I didn't cry though... I just couldn't. I looked around, it was horrible. The looks on the faces of my friends. Many cried, some just stared blankly into space. The thing I remember most was when I looked to my good friend Jesse. He was a tough kid. I just remember that he had his hand over his mouth, he stared forward, his eyes squinted, tears ran out of them. Ricky was a close friend of mine. I was friends with just about everyone, but Ricky didn't have too many friends, only me, Jesse, and some kid named Dakota. Just yesterday, before he died, I remember talking to him... we were working together on some kind of paper cutting thing. He was a nice kid. I heard a lot that day, I heard he choked himself with a wire, I heard how girls would ask him out on dates... but never show up. People were so cruel to Ricky... That Thursday, I attended his funeral. It was sad, just everything about it. They talked about how Ricky was so curious. They talked about how kind he was. It was the first funeral I had been to in my whole life. It was open casket too. I remember when we had to pay our respects to the family. I remember walking past Ricky's body... he didn't move, he looked... pale. I remember the distinct chill that went through me, the way I shivered as I looked upon his face. I soon payed my respects to the family and as I was about to leave, one of Ricky's teachers pulled me aside and said, "thanks for being such a good friend to him Stephen." It was a bitter-sweet moment. So... that's the story of Ricky. Back to Colass... you see good listener, there was something about Colass that reminded me of Ricky. I couldn't explain it, but I grew obsessed over what people did to Colass. I forgot about my writing, I rarely wrote after that. I just looked around a bit and found that Halo Fanon was full of flaming and bullying. It disgusted me, I knew I had to stop it. I felt so bad for the people who were subjected to it. No one would help them, there wasn't a decent enough soul there to say, "this is wrong." I vowed to be that person. And so I started "My Struggle" as I nicknamed it. It was simply my effort to defend the defenseless. To be the strength of the weak. I did good things... many good things. It was bad at first but soon the flaming seemed to happen less often. About this time I finally started my new story Halo: The Beacon. It would be my greatest yet. I soon got to work and about half way through it, I met a person named SPARTAN-08BLAM! He was a fan of my new story. I found him to be a nice person as well. Then a new user came along, her username was SheWhoKnows. I read her work and found it to be impressive, so I simply gave her a compliment... with that our friendship grew. Me and SheWhoKnows and SPARTAN-08BLAM! soon became the best of friends. They supported me in my work on the wiki, the Struggle. By that time, I was becoming a big name on the site, I made new friends and many enemies. Soon though, my Struggle ground to a halt. The administration stopped me, I was unable to help those who needed it. I knew that I had to stop what I was doing... so foolishly gave up the Struggle. All my friends began to separate from me. I began to hear rumors that Jesse (SPARTAN-08BLAM!) didn't like me anymore. It drove me mad, he was a brother to me. One night I decided to find out, I lied to him to find what I needed to know. And I found out that my suspicions were correct. He did hate me. Evelyn (SheWhoKnows) was on as well and she agreed with Jesse. I then checked wikia and found that I was banned by Ajax 013 for three years. The reason was: Thanks to a recent confession by an anonymous user, I have now been provided with evidence that you did infact incite members to openly attempt to cause a civil war. Guess who the anonymous user was? My good friend Evelyn. I was later set up for trial on IRC, of course I was... torn apart, laughed at, called names. The only things that hurt though were the fact that Evelyn claimed to have set up a "ruse." I knew it was a lie, she just wanted a good spot at HF as did Jesse. So they turned me in, stabbed me in the back and now I'm gone. In the end, I never got a second chance, justice was never had. We asked for evidence of a ban, but the administration refused to provide. To this day I know I was banned wrongly... So on May 18, 2009 I was banned for 3 years from Halo Fanon, betrayed by my best friends. That's my story. ---- Don't worry good listener, I said there was a lesson to be learned and from observation of my acts I have found the fatal mistake that I made... you see friend, I gave up. I crumbled under the force of oppression, I abandoned the users. Everything was fine while the Struggle was going on, but when I quit, my world was destroyed. The lesson I have learned is: never give up. ''Even when the odds are against you, even when they all laugh in your face, never stop fighting for what you believe in. Never crumble like I did. '' I hope you will remember what I've told you today and that you will carry it with you for the rest of your life. I hope you will make the world a better place for us all. No go and finish your Struggle... ---- Of course there is more to this story, things that happened afterward. But that is for another day...